Messages

I agree with the downsides of python. I'm a Haskell user myself, so I understand the benefits of a well designed type system.

To be clear, this is not an attack on the engine. I used it 6 or 7 years ago to make a game and I thought it was great. The language didn't bother me at all because I was used to coding in C. Now I've been to spoiled by the conveniences of modern languages, which is why I find it a bit harder to go back to C-like languages.

Again, I agree that this is not really a big deal in AGS because of how scripting is used. I was only curious about the possibility of using another language and how difficult it would be to implement one. From what I'm understanding, the API is not exposed by the C++ code, so you cannot call that directly. The easiest way would be to create a transpiler between AGS script and whatever X language. Which is not easy at all.

@Khris

Haha, I'm guessing you're not familiar with s-expressions and Lisp family of languages. It's a great language and if you're at all interested in expanding your skills as a programmer / computer scientist, I highly recommend it. But that's besides the point. I wasn't suggesting Janet per se, I only brought it up as an example of a small language that comes with a single C file that can be embedded into an existing C/C++ project.

As for why I asked, mostly out of curiosity. I'm not suggesting it's a make or break feature of the engine. Far from it.

However, I think there are legitimate reasons to at least consider other languages. Aside from personal preferences (I don't like C/C++), I don't think the current scripting language is very beginner friendly. I've been under the impression that many people who use AGS come from background with little to no programming experience (correct me if I'm wrong). Whereas in the 90s it was common for people to be introduced to programming with a language like C, that is not the case anymore. Most people learn and become comfortable with languages like Python or Ruby or Javascript or something along the same lines. Plus the overall trend in the programming world is to move from imperative to declarative style.

However, I also understand the point that the other user made. It's not easy to do this in a 25-year old engine.

I found some really old posts mentioning support for Lua, but nothing recent.

Has there been an previous attempts to enable scripting in another language? What are the challenges or obstacles to this?

Theoretically speaking, how difficult would it be to embed another language, like Janet (which can be bundled into a single .c file and easily included in any C/C++ file)? Could this be done as a plugin?
How complicated is the implementation of the current scripting language? (On the surface, it seems like a thin layer over C).